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The problem of under-determination

The existing discussion of scientific realism and antirealism has been based on Pierre Duhem’s argument for the underdetermination of theory choice using evidence. The central argument of underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence is the idea that the existing evidence at any given time can be insufficient in determining the beliefs we ought to hold on it. The challenges that arise from underdetermination do not only apply to scientific contexts since it was evident in the classical attacks on knowledge. Rene Descartes doubted any beliefs that could be doubted by the supposition that there might be a powerful evil demon that was only after deceiving him. A challenge is a form of underdetermination based on the idea that our sensory experiences would be similar if they arise from the evil demon and not an external world.
Apart from the classical arguments, underdetermination has been considered to arise in scientific contexts in various ways that do not restate the radical skeptical possibilities. The traditional focus for underdetermination in science is based on the work of Duhem, who was a historian and philosopher of science. In his text, ‘The aim and structure of the physical theory,’ he formulated different problems of scientific underdetermination and argued that the problems posed significant challenges to the attempts of confirming theories in physics (Park, 2009). Quine later suggested that the challenges were applicable in both confirming scientific theories and also to all knowledge. Despite their arguments, none of them could systematically distinguish the various basic lines of thinking about underdetermination that can be evaluated in their works. The main issue of discussion is the difference between holist and contrastive forms of underdetermination. Holist underdetermination is a result of the inability to test hypotheses that leave us underdetermined in response to a failed prediction. On its part, contrastive underdetermination entails the possibility that, for any evidence to confirm a theory, there might be other theories that are confirmed by the same evidence. There are various forms of underdetermination suggested to confront scientific inquiry, the causes and consequences claimed for the varieties, are sufficient attempts to address the problem of underdetermination for the scientific theories. Among the attempts to respond to the problem of underdetermination include the scientific realists (like Einstein) and instrumentalists (like Osiander). For this discussion, I will focus on scientific realism as a response to the problem of underdetermination. I will address the objection that it abandons empiricism.
Realists tend to see the burden of proof in the problem of underdetermination as lying with anti-realists. It may not be sufficient to point out the examples of physical theories that are empirically equivalent to some of the criterion of observability (Brock & Mares, 2014). What is needed is a general recipe for the generation of an empirically equivalent alternative to a given theory that gives as output things that are similar to actual scientific theories. Without this, realists are entitled to assume that the existence of theories that are empirically equivalent to the best theories is a philosophical fantasy. It is common sense to believe that the things encountered in the world are real and exist independently of the observers, a concept referred as ‘common-sense realism.’ Scientific realists explain that objects of scientific discovery and knowledge exist independently of the mind and thoughts of scientists in a world where scientific truths are discoverable, and science is a progressive and objective enterprise. However, instrumentalists and anti-realist philosophers have disputed everything that has appeared to be obvious to most people and assert that the doctrine of realism is irrational. They argue that there is a serious disconnect between what is in the world and its knowledge, considering that the mind is dependent on the subjective evidence of the senses (Chalmers 1990; Devitt 2010, 225-226; Fine 2005, 950).
The debates on scientific realism focus on the nature and epistemological status of the scientific knowledge. Science helps to describe the world and explain how and why things are the way they are. The process entails theorizing about the various unobservable entities, laws, and mechanisms that cause the things we see or sense. Scientists attempt to understand and represent the nature of things at a deep level (Ladyman 2002, 5-8; Okasha 2002, 60). Scientific realists aim at explaining the very truth about the theoretical entities, laws, and causes of the observed phenomena. Scientific realism and anti-realism argument has a basis on the aims as well as products of science and proceeds to the question of how best to interpret and represent the theories or fats of science. It deals with how individuals can make sense of what scientists practice and say. Scientific realists discuss the positive epistemic commitment to the established scientific theory and understand the beliefs in the world as described by scientists. Realists focus on the observable and unobservable occurrences and claim that the truth of a proposition is a required condition for scientific explanation. In their argument, theories help to accurately describe the world, which makes it necessary to be interpreted realistically. The main argument is the distinction between observable versus unobservable entities in which realists argue that reliable claims can be made about the observable and unobservables.
A crucial contrast lies between the primary instrumentalist commitments on empiricism which emphasizes on the role of sense experience in science and the scientific realism that commits the realist to the consideration of what can be actual. This can be highlighted using the example of Galileo’s conflict with his church on the question of the relevance of his postulate of heliocentricity as a model of the solar system. Cardinal Bellarmine did not object to the instrumental use of Galileo’s hypothesis on the idea that the earth orbits the sun as the tool for making astronomical predictions. He objected that Galileo should not claim that heliocentrism was true and used mortal threats and sanctions. In the context of science, empiricism falls under realism. Instrumentalism has been used to claim that scientific theories have no truth values and are no more than pragmatic tools for facilitating predictions. There are significant tensions between science and metaphysics. They are both concerned with the aim of describing the nature of things and the entities of which they are comprised. The is deep disagreement about the significance of metaphysics and its relationship to science, with a spectrum of views that range from the idea that metaphysics is meaningless at one end and the view that there can be no empirical or scientific knowledge without metaphysical understanding to the other.
Scientific realism asserts the epistemic commitment to believe in the truth or the near truth of the claims of scientific investigation. Theoretical claims enable the understanding of literal knowledge of the underlying physical reality and positive epistemic attitude towards the content of established theories and models of the world described by science. The direct human sensory experience is not privileged, and observability is extended to genes, gravity, atoms, and bosons that can be detected through external effects based on instrumental observation. The description of realism can include the semantic commitment to the truth of theories that is understood through the applicable theory. The truth of the statements within a theory comprises of the facts and the actual state of affairs in the world. The achievement of the science of the progress of knowledge for the realist is considered as evidence for the truth of the scientist’s best theoretical statements. They use theories to make accurate references to the things in the world as well as the unobservables. The efficacy of explaining and predicting something forms the basis of success on an issue. Scientific theories refer to the real features that exist in the world such as entities, objects, structures, forces, and others that have observable phenomena (Ross, Ladyman & Collier 2010; Sober 2014).
Scientific realists tend to object to any positions that arise from the idealist alternatives that deny the ideas that are external and independent of the mind. Based on metaphysics, realists are committed to the ontology of things independently and objectively existing in the world, which is discovered and described by scientists. Realists commit making literal interpretations of their discoveries which include the claims about entities, theoretical statements, laws, processes, properties, and relations that are considered as having truth values. Such values may be approximate or provisional, but anti-realists may claim that unobservables do not have literal meaning at all. The realist epistemological commitment is the idea that the claims of science comprise of knowledge of the world including the observables and unobservables. Scientific realists retaliate the idea that, it is irrational not to follow similar patterns of inference concerning the arguments about realism especially on the conduct of science. It is irrational to fail to assert the truth of the theories that scientists accept. If there is a sufficient reason for holding onto a theory, then it is good and sufficient reason to accept the entities postulated by the theory that exists (Mumford, 2014).
Realist argument is not precise and thus common to read the accounts of realism regarding approximate truth and concerning the best theories and models of scientists. The idea reflects on the dependence of empirical research and inductive inference. The history of science has been characterized by falsified theories and broken paradigms. As such, realists recognize that all the knowledge is partial and incomplete, and thus, are committed to the mature theories that have been rigorously and repeatedly tested and developed. The theories that have survived and with the potential of leading to successful novel predictions are considered as converging on the real or close to real (Chakravartty, 2013 & Sankey, 2016).
Every philosophy of science ought to include an account of the relationship between theory and evidence. Einstein preferred to model the logical relationship between theory and evidence as inspired by his reading of Pierre Duhem. Theoretical holism and underdetermination of theory choice by the empirical evidence is the main argument in Duhem’s philosophy of science. Einstein’s exposure to Duhem’s philosophy of science left a significant mark on him as evident in his writings. Explicit citations of Duhem by Einstein are rare, but explicit invocations of a holist picture of the structure and empirical interpretation of theories are not hard to find. In a review by Einstein in 1924 of Alfred Elsbach’s Kant and Einstein, he explained why he is not sympathetic with Kant. He explained that a physical theory consists of elements A, B, C, D that together constitute a logical whole that connects the pertinent experiments. The aggregate of fewer elements than all the four without one does not say anything about the experiences. One can consider the aggregate of three elements as a priori and only one as empirically conditioned. The issue that remains unsatisfactory is always the arbitrariness in the choice of the elements that one label as priori, and completely different from the idea that another could replace the theory by replacing the elements by others (Einstein 1924, 1688–1689). In this discussion, Einstein argues that, while one can choose to consider selected elements as a priori and non-empirical, no principle can help to determine the elements that should be designated and the ability to designate them. Only the totality of the elements possesses empirical content. Duhem made a similar point against the people who would make certain statements against empirical refutation by claiming the status of conventional definitions (Duhem 1906, part 2, ch.6). Edouard Le Roy in 1901 argued about the law of free fall and could not be refuted through experiments because it served as simply the definition of ‘free fall.’ Einstein answered the claims of neo-Kantians and Duhem responded to the species of conventionalist. The response was that experiment could not refute the law of free fall by itself, but it’s because of it being part of a larger theoretical whole having empirical content when considered only as a whole. Einstein shared with Schlick and Reichenback on the need to develop a new form of empiricism that could be sufficient in defending the general relativity against the neo-Kantian critiques. They disagreed on the nature and place of conventions in science, but all agreed that priori element in scientific cognition could be understood as a conventional moment in science. Einstein explained that, if theory choice is empirically determinate, then it’s difficult to realize how theory gives a story about anything other than experience. He may not be a scientific realist, but he believed that there was content in theory other than the empirical content. He believed that theoretical science helped to understand the nature itself even if there will be no unique correct story in the ontology (Hyyard, 1993). If the only choice lies in conventional coordinating definitions, then there is no choice as emphasized by Reichenbach. In his argument, it is clear that if the empirical content is the only available content, then empirically equivalent theories have similar content and the difference results from the different choices of coordinating definitions.
The argument on the nature and purpose of conventions in science continued to the end of Einstein’s life as evident in the exchange between him and Reichenbach. The question was whether the choice of geometry is empirical, conventional or a priori. Reichenbach emphasized on the earlier view that after an appropriate coordinating definition is established to equate some ‘practically rigid rod’ with those of a ‘rigid body,’ then the geometry of physical space is wholly determined through empirical evidence (Reichenbach, 1949, 297). Einstein response included a dialogue between two characters (Reichenbach and Poincaré), where one (Reichenbach) conceded that there are no perfectly rigid bodies in nature and physics must be used to correct things such as thermal deformations. In this case, geometry and physics are used together (Einstein 1949, 678).
Before the publication of “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” by Quine in 1951, Einstein made explicit the semantic implications of general holism. He explained that having theory choice as empirically underdetermined implied an obvious question of why we are not very aware of the underdetermination in the day-to-day practice of science. As such, Einstein asserted that the main task of a physicist is to search for the general and elementary laws from which the world picture can be obtained from the pure deduction. No logical path can lead to the elementary laws, but instead the intuition resting on the empathic understanding of experience. The development of physics has shown that, all the conceivable theoretical constructions that one have been proved to be unconditionally superior to all others. No one who has researched on the concepts can deny that, in practice, the world of perceptions determine the theoretical system unambiguously though there lacks a logical path leading from the perceptions to the basic principles of the theory (Einstein 1918, 31).
Conclusion
In my analysis, I realize that there is a sense in which underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence is not only possible but also actual. There is no general theory of inverse problems, and one cannot assert that most f the problems do not involve underdetermination of theory by observation. Realists suppose that the burden of proof falls heavily on the side of anti-realists in their dispute on the underdetermination argument against scientific realism. The arguments postulated by Duhem and supported by Einstein and Reichenbach are critical in helping to understand the problem of underdetermination.

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